Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) entered the rape exception debate when speaking at a town hall on Thursday. When asked about abortion in cases of rape, Bartlett responded that there are so few pregnancies from rape that an exception would not be an issue. Congressman Bartlett is currently in a tight race to win re-election against […]
For the first time since the 1960’s, a woman wearing a traditional Muslim headscarf known as a hijab, presented the news on an Egyptian state TV channel. Fatima Nabil appeared on Sunday to give the mid-day news bulletin. After her segment, Nabil told reporters “At last the revolution has reached state television.” Under former President […]
Mitt Romney officially accepted the Republican Presidential nomination Thursday evening. In his acceptance speech on the final night of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL, Romney echoed key points of the Republican platform including planks that support eliminating a woman’s right to choose and banning same sex marriage by defending the “sanctity of life” […]
A federal court rejected a Texas voter identification law on Thursday. The three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court decided that the law would unduly prevent minorities from being able to vote. If enacted, the law would have required voters to present one of six state-approved IDs before being able to vote. Voters would be […]
District Judge Robert Hinkle announced Wednesday that he will granting a motion to permanently block strict voter registration laws that prevent third-party organizations from registering new voters in Florida. Hinkle will be able to officially grant the motion once a federal appeals court dismisses the case. The State of Florida has agreed to drop the […]
On Tuesday, the Republican Party approved their 2012 platform, which seeks to undo years of legislation protecting reproductive choice, marriage equality, disability rights, affirmative action, education, immigration reform, and voting rights among others. The platform takes the following positions: On abortion – “We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child […]
A “personhood” amendment granting rights to a fertilized egg will not appear on the November 2012 Colorado ballot because it failed to gather enough valid signatures. The Colorado Secretary of State announced that the initiative fell short of the 86,105 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot by 3,859 valid signatures, according to local KDVR. […]
Senior Cardinal Timothy Dolan will give the benediction at the Democratic National Convention a week after leading prayer at the Republican National Convention. Cardinal Dolan is the senior Catholic Cardinal in the United States and is also President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Earlier this year, documents surfaced showing that Dolan, as then […]
Six companies have announced they are separating from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – General Electric, Western Union, Sprint Nextel, Symantec (creators of Norton anti-virus software), Reckitt Benckiser Group (which makes Lysol), and Entergy (a Louisiana-based power company). ALEC came under scrutiny for their support of “Stand Your Ground” legislation used in the defense […]
Gender stereotypes are prevalent in many K-12 public coeducational schools with single-sex academic classes and programs across the country according to the ACLU’s “Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes” campaign report released last week. The ACLU’s report looks at self-reported documents by 21 school districts in 15 states. The ACLU found that multiple public school single-sex classes […]
The Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, Tom smith, a wealthy business man, stepped into the rape/abortion controversy. Smith, in commenting on U.S. Representative Todd Akin’s infamous statement about rape and abortion, compared a pregnancy conceived by rape to a pregnancy conceived simply out of wedlock. When speaking to the Pennsylvania Press Club, Smith […]
Many women in rural areas of Kenya do not seek prenatal care in clinics for fear of being stigmatized as being HIV positive, according to a study published in PLoS Medicine, the leading open-access medical journal. The study, based on a 2007-2009 survey of 1,777 pregnant women in a highly-populated area of rural Kenya, found […]
Charlie Crist, the former Florida Republican governor, announced his support for President Barack Obama in an editorial in the Tampa Bay Times Sunday on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Crist, who is now registered independent, applauded President Obama’s actions as president, citing his efforts to improve the economy, infrastructure, education, and […]
Two members of feminist punk band Pussy Riot have fled Russia to evade arrest, according to the Huffington Post. Three members of the band were found guilty of “hooliganism” and sentenced to two years in prison earlier this month. The maximum sentence for the charges was seven years. The hooliganism conviction stems from an action […]
Incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is leading by 10 points over challenger Congressman Todd Akin, according to a Rasmussen poll released Thursday. This is the first time Senator McCaskill has led in the polls since May. She currently has 48 percent support to Akin’s 38 percent. The new poll shows the impact of explosive statements […]
Women in southern Texas are increasingly traveling to Mexican pharmacies to obtain a drug to induce medical abortions because abortion clinics are restricted in the state. The drug, misoprostol, is an effective method for terminating a pregnancy within the first nine weeks – when taken in the correct dosage, according to the World Health Organization. […]
The video that inspired the founding of the group We Are Woman is titled “We are Warriors,” and as the the national rally for women’s rights that the group organized came to a close last Saturday in Washington, D.C., the members of We Are Woman did indeed feel like warriors. Saturday’s rally attracted more than […]
Women’s Equality Day is coming up this Sunday! Tis’ the season to mobilize for women’s rights! Women’s Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. It is a time where many advocates for women’s rights get together to celebrate and rally to advance women’s equality. In the […]
Personhood USA criticized the Romney-Ryan ticket after the campaign announced it would not oppose abortion in cases of rape. The radical “pro-life” organization originally praised Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan for his continued efforts to defend “personhood” – which could ban emergency contraception, birth control pills, and IUDs as well as all abortions, even in […]
Mitt Romney will announce that the senior US Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan will give a benediction at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Cardinal Dolan was requested to speak personally by convention organizers, according to a press statement released by the Archdiocese of New York. The press release states that the Cardinal is will […]
